Relationships that assert Change

In my previous article about surviving relationships I had mentioned about the fact that how love is not the only factor that governs the success of a relationship. There were lot of queries to the fact that if not love then what. My article seemed to be a bit inconclusive; however, deliberately I didn’t want to conclude the article in any sense. This is because of the fact that I wanted to keep a thing that is not understood conclusively on the inconclusive side. There may be lot of theories that define the guidelines to maneuver a relationship to a successful directions, many agony-aunts and agony-uncles, but honestly speaking relationships are like finger-prints, they differ from person to person and from circumstances to circumstances. Hence, there cannot be a fixed formula to alleviate the pain, or envisage a problem that occurs in a relationship. I, for once, am not trying to be a guru, preaching any kind of formula to improve your love life. I am just addressing some of the things that I have come across and would like to document it, in case there may be any reference required from the experience that I may have had.


Today I would like to draw my attention towards the fact that how a partner (male or female) wants the other to change according to him/her. One has to understand that in every human being there is a factor that arouses the autocratic tendencies in him/her which only wants to rule over anything and everything apart from him/her. The softest target in case such feeling arises in a person is the partner that is close to him/her. The best thing by which one can assert himself/herself is actually to enforce a kind of change that is related to the characteristic of the other person. This is a thing that actually makes the other person really cranky. In the initial stages there is everything that is likable about the person and once the commitment is done, and there is no way to step back the other person always wants to change some of the characteristics that are inherent in the person and are the characteristics that actually define the person as an entity. I have mostly seen these things happen with people after marriage.


In today’s times marriage is a socially sanctified relationship that has a kind of social identity and recognition, however it also brings with itself its own limitations. I have often seen people trying to change the other person to an extent, which is not suitable for the other person. I have seen that the change is sometimes frustrating for the other person. It is true for husbands and wives. A husband, after marriage wants to see a different form of the girl that he actually loved. The same qualities, now become a kind of embarrassment for him and he asserts himself to the wife to change, to be a altogether different person, which may be socially viable but definitely not the person whom he had fallen in love with. Same is the case of wives, who, only after marriage try to find bugs in the life of their husbands. Sometimes I really feel that wives can make very good quality assurance executives because they have these uncanny habit and talent of finding errors in virtually everything and anything that their husbands do.


This is one of the reasons by which cracks develop in a relationship. As the time goes by the relationship reduces from being an emotional attachment to merely an official social bonding. The personal space is invaded by social obligations and preferences give way to adjustments. A relationship always requires a kind of adjustment. As I said in my previous article that a relationship doesn’t sustain on love but it sustains due to absence of hatred. It is about how you can actually live with the vices rather than endorse the virtues. So when you try to convert the vices to virtues just by asserting yourself on somebody or by merely giving some evidences of virtuosity then the other person is actually irritated and looks up at you as a kind of villain who has come to invade his/her life. Change is good, but when it is enforced upon it tends to get on the nerves. There is also this feeling in a person that for so many years he/she has been doing a particular thing but all of a sudden somebody, who he/she had loved, trusted and made a part of his/her life, is trying to invade the basic domains of his/her life. How can this be condoned or even tolerated. This antagonistic feeling further amplifies in the heart and finally comes out as an outburst. This results to fights initially then differences that are far from being met and finally there is a gap which is never filled. An obvious breakage in a relationship, which in any way is not desirable by any means.


So, how does one avoid this from happening? Let me give you one example. Taj Mahal, one of the wonders of the world and one of the most expensive and beautiful evidences of love is white in color. What if somebody wants to change this to a multi-colored minaret? Would this do any good to the existing Taj-Mahal? Would this add any kind of value apart from actually satisfying the ego of the person who is actually painting it red and blue? The answer is the mere attempt of trying to do this is a kind of folly that causes more harm than good. It harms the Taj-Mahal, establishes the person as a lunatic and drives away the people who are coming to watch the Taj-Mahal with a preconceived notion that it is white in color. Similarly every individual is like this monument of love; unique, unparalleled and distinct. Trying to change the basic characteristics itself is to be like the person who tries to paint Taj-Mahal red and blue. This brings more harm to the relationship, than doing good. There may be arguments that a person is trying to change the other person for the others good, however the fact remains that this change is carried out by means of assertion which is evident of the egoisitic intentions of the other person.


Conclusion: as many of my friends would want to have is as follows. Do not try to change things that actually are inherent. You have loved a person due to some qualities so try to be positive about that, rather than being negative about his/her vices. Because in the process of eliminating the vices you may as well eliminate the qualities that he/she might be having and then probably lose him/her.

Morose Cartoon films making our kids dumb!!!!!!

My daughter is a cartoon freak.
She is addicted to cartoons, just as any kid would be at her age. Every time there is a cartoon show she is just hooked on to the television like a couch potato to just watch her cartoon characters doing all sorts of antiques for her. What I find essentially in these cartoons is a lack of basic humor that our generation cartoons usually had. With due respect to the creators of such cartoon characters (mostly Chinese) I would like to make a statement that creativity cannot be mass manufactured as it is a process that involves a lot of thinking and then subsequent implementation on the lines of the thought process. This chain of events is grossly messed up when somebody is in a race of producing more lot in a stipulated amount of time given. I believe like this you can produce cars, chips or even electronics but intelligent program production needs a kind of thought process which is distinct for each program.


I am referring to shows like “Ninja Hathodi”, “Shin-Chan” which are cartoons but fail to titillate humor in you. The shows are just morose narrations of some comic strips which have to be done in a half an hour slot. Most of the shows are marketed well but have very low on the content value. My previous blog was about the shows that are actually killing the interest of the television viewer. However, this problem is much more serious, as it is making a negative impact on the overall sense of humor development of one’s child. I remember in my days, when I was a kid we used to have cartoons like tom and jerry and Bugs bunny. The thought of these shows even can get me into a laugh riot. Even today when I watch Tom and Jerry I really laugh just in the same way I used to when I was a kid. Same is the reaction when I see the antiques of the great Bugs Bunny. The characters are immortal.


One thing I learnt also from these shows; Cartoons are not only for kids, they are actually also for the purpose of bringing out the kid inside you. This sole purpose is achieved by the earlier generation cartoons, which used to bring out the kid also in adults. However, in today’s times there are not much animated classics created on the lines of Looney tunes and Tom and Jerry. The animated films are high on technology (may-be), however the concept and the content have totally gone for a toss. This is because of the fact that the present generation Cartoon films do not have a purpose like the earlier generation had. The sole objective is to fill a time-slot in a channel and to generate TRPs. Such kind of shows don’t last longer and the evidence lies in the fact that when I ask my daughter as to what did the great “Ninja-Hathodi” do yesterday, she is not able to recall, but I am still able to recall most of the animated classics of Warner Bros (looney tunes) and MGM (Tom and Jerry).


I would like to stress on this fact that our kids are our future. If we want to see them sharp and want to help them grow up healthy by mind, we have to prevent them from watching such morose cartoon shows. They are the worst kinds of enemies that you can introduce your children to.


Moral of the story: A cartoon film without humor and content is useless for your kids. Despise them.

Deteriorating Indian Television

I was probably 10 years old when my fascination with television started. In our times watching too much of television was a kind of taboo and kids who were more exposed to the idiot box were actually looked like outcasts by the parents of “good-kids”. I however was a T.V. buff and was in the bad kids’ club for many reasons. I liked to watch cartoons, the mythological serials and quiz-shows. In our school there were debates, which you hardly find now, about the pros and cons of the television. These debates were heated ones and I always used to favor the television whole-heartedly. I am sure about the fact that such debates are very much archaic in these times.

As time progressed, the technology of television developed by leaps and bounds. The onslaught of cable television with satellite services then the successive migration from cable to d2h has hardly taken much time. I can say this because the technology became more mature at a much faster rate than actually me. It seemed as if the technology had had a serious syndrome of progeria where a person becomes mature at a much faster rate than you can ever imagine. There are HD-TVs now, the conventional CRT is a thing of past and there are LED-TVs. Today houses have more than one television and that too of much high-end capabilities. Having said this I want to just make one point, having a good body and sharp features may not essentially evolve the soul also. The soul of television is not the technology per say but actually the programs that are actually aired.

I remember how I used to wait for “Mahabharat” to be aired every Sunday and also wait for quiz time. People actually used to adjust their timings on the basis of the shows that were aired in the CRT television with only one channel earlier. Today the thing is very different. You have soap-operas that run for ages together, and also with re-runs, so if you have missed the main part you are not worried and you can watch it on the re-run. The soap-operas just stretch the stories on and on like a rubber band and then when the TRPs just fall they just end abruptly. You cannot call these un-creative programs as serials because in a serial there is a script that is pre-planned for a particular number of episodes and then there is a conclusive end to the serial that leaves a kind of impression in the minds of people. It arises the want for the people to see more of it, but also gives a kind of indication that, it ended on a good note. Today’s stories are a bit different.

We have stories that openly depict polyandry and philandering in its epitomic best. The female/male protagonists seldom have any kind of moral obligations towards the viewers and justify their amorous acts on a more placid platform. There is also the case of story stretching on and on and on top of that too many soap operas that are actually of similar nature. The essence of television is not the television box itself but the programs. What is the fun if you are actually having a full HD television but you are actually watching cranky shows on that box? Does it actually make any sense to invest or spend so much money on buying that television set? How long can you just admire the picture quality but ignore the malaise that you are experiencing due to watching such unscrupulous shows that are not only testing your patience but also leaving a negative impact on the home atmosphere in general. Does it really give you the peace of mind that you actually want? Or is it just giving you a reason to escape from the world for some time. If that is only the reason, escapism, then who really needs a HD TV for that. This objective can be well achieved if you are having a normal television, even black and white, for that matter, because the colors in the show are also of no importance to you.

Gone are the days when there used to be gripping stories of human values and behavior. There were distinctive shades in each and every show and every show was addressed to a specific viewer. I agree that this concept has now changed as you have a separate channel catering to your specific needs, but needs as specific they get, are not unlimited. Because you may have the need to watch news but this need may not be there for the entire 24 hrs of the day. Variety is a also a factor which we are not looking at and this is the reason why you have to swap channels frequently, for variety. However, now the issue is that we have more channels and good technology but less interesting programs. 95% of the time I have swapped all the channels in my television and concluded that nothing interesting is being aired on the television, and I bet this also has been the feeling that many of us have had when trying to find solace in television in idle times.

So on a concluding note, the importance today should be given to the content rather than the technology. Technology is heartless; it is a mere amalgamation of logic and precedence. However, humans have emotions which alone technology cannot suffice, nor can it be compensated by mechanical TV soap operas. These emotional buds are actually excited when they see something which is different and rich in content. There should be always an effort to innovate and supply rich content to the viewer, which is not happening.

The day that I really loved!!!!!

Today was a very tumultuous day for me. After many years probably I was dis-arrayed and wanted to be uncontrolled for some reasons. For the first time in life didn’t think whether I was right or wrong, because within inside I knew that we cannot decide what is wrong and what is right. Being in the mortal world I have this advantage of being oblivious to the truth, the absolute truth, and this in many ways has helped me develop a kind of cushion which I use to comfort myself for many different reasons. Today, however, I didn’t want to use that cushion. I wanted to experience the thorny reality; I wanted to be a part of the hard process of appraising myself in the war that we call as life. I never imagined that a sort of an escapist like me would dare to take this rebellious way of refuting myself and be brutally honest to myself, even if it is harming me. Today I wanted to be really myself, and by God I was in my full flow.

After the office, after discharging my professional duties, took the way to home, but there was a kind of weight carrying on my heart. Didn’t know why, and didn’t want to know why. Sometimes, I think I don’t even know something that is going on inside me, because staying with machines probably I have forgotten my system. However, it may happen with anybody, and I am not blaming any one for this thing that I have, because honestly, I love it. Machines don’t lie, machines don’t bother you with their emotions and they remain loyal to you. However, having said that, I know that I am of a different breed, and today this machine wanted to be a human. After many days, months and years probably felt the human necessity. Usually, I am a person, honestly who would try to blanket few things under light humor (if that is understood at all by anyone). Today, I couldn’t do that. Don’t know why, don’t know how. Sometimes, you require a kind of outburst, a kind of discharge from yourself and this is what I decided to do. Taking refuge of any kind of vices would have been a kind of indication that I was weak, and I didn’t want that to happen at all. So what did I do?

Well, after I came out of the office at around 9:00 PM I took a cab to Marine drive and there I sat for two hours. Don’t know why, but started shedding tears. The skylines of Malabar hills just watched me,the ignited board of SANYO and the lights of the queen’s necklace wanted to highlight my state to all but the soft breeze of the sea just covered whatever was coming out of inside. Probably it knew that this is a portion of me, I didn’t want to show off. However, today was a different day. I was not crying due to sorrow, I wasn’t crying due to some loss, I was crying by choice. Just felt that it had been many days I had not thrown something out of my system, didn’t realize that this is going to come out of me like that. The terrorized Oberoi Hotel was standing behind me like a support that is really needed, but alas the last thing that I needed at this moment was a support. I wanted to be left free.

It was a state that you are standing on a cliff and there are a thousand ropes actually holding you from falling. You know that you will not fall off, but then the wind that is flowing from above and from all the direction, is inviting you. You are now bounded but then you are also in the capture of the winds, where do you go? Do you want the ropes actually to hold you? Or you want the winds to take over? You know that these winds are not going to be for long, you know that these winds would probably throw you off the cliff, from which you are protected by the ropes, but still you are enjoying the soft touch of the winds. The ropes start you bite you, even when they are actually holding you against all kinds of odds, you are actually diverted towards the winds. You would probably care to die by the soft touch of the winds for once rather to stay in the bittercaptivity of the ropes. At this moment what could be the feeling that you could ever display? You are in a state of trance, when you actually want to be happy but tears roll down your eyes. You want to enjoy but the only enjoyment comes when the breeze actually cools you, and cools you more with the wet tears that you jerk out. Did you have an experience like this? Well, I bet even if you would have had, you would have been pragmatic enough to be not to display it. Question is if the pragmatism was actually worth it? I would say that I don’t think so. You were practical but then you lost the moment. The moment where you could have been probably with yourself or even possibly God and then probably been there for more and more time.

Someone told me that I would never attain the supreme nirvana because of my eccentric ways and iconoclast thoughts. I would just think that if this is not nirvana then what actually is? I was there alone surrounded by an atmosphere of silence in the middle of the night and then I was just shedding tears looking at the sea, and most importantly didn’t know why. I just did it, because I wanted to do it, I was enjoying it. I feel that something inside me just urged me to go to that place today and that too at the middle of night and do this activity.

Today I take this opportunity to thank God for this act. I was very happy. For once I left all inhibitions and did what I wanted to do, because probably I had run out of things to do at all under such a state.Yes you can say that I am MAD (Motivated Aggressive and Determined), but today I was just plain Kalyan, a person who just saw the best thing that you can ever see in the whole world and actually control it, one’s own life. I was living, I was no more this machine and definitely out of logical boundaries, even if it was for some moment.
Please share your unconventional experiences like this.

Surviving a relationship

I have often wondered why there is always an element of compatibility in a kind of relationship. What should be there, which would actually make a relationship work? Understanding, compassion, empathy or just plain love; well, couldn’t figure it out. Actually I feel that God has made all human beings so different that it would only be possible for God Himself to completely understand him/her. Medical science says that there cannot be any mechanical simulation of the hypothalamus, but one can definitely be understood by various means like body-language, tone etc etc. If you ask me, this concept seems to be very vague and very inconclusive in many manners. I never planned any kind of standard operating procedures in the process of building any relationship with anybody, probably when I planned unknowingly things went haywires for me. People are always in a mood to plan things for the future, look at the past, register a kind of sensory algorithm before actually realizing the essence of a relationship and while they do that the best part of the relationship is gone.

Love is not about liking the good qualities of a person, relationship is not about admiration or approbation because eulogy has limited life and often doesn’t serve as the fuel to maintain the momentum in a relationship. So then what is the key factor of a relationship? It is about bearing with the vices, overcoming limitations and undermining any kind of negative vibes that may actually tear apart the fabric that veils the soar that every relationship carries with itself. One may like you for various reasons, however liking has a finite survival time and after that comes the aspect of what should be the conditions so that the opposite person doesn’t hate you. Long term relations are not bounded by love, on the contrary they are bounded by absence of hatred. Tolerance and empathy serve as two major criteria that actually fuel the engines of a ongoing relationship. Trust, belief and mutual respect are actually the catalysts that smoothen the rough patches that a long standing relationship actually encounters.

Love can be an instantaneous feeling which has its own pros and cons, however love cannot alone be the factor of making a long relationship survive. Love can bind you, but whether it can keep you bounded forever is what it cannot guarantee. Relationships are like bridges that are built not only to suffice your romantic needs but also be a kind of escape way when you actually would want to escape from yourself. There are certain rooms in the corner of your heart where you also would not like to visit. Some dark rooms, which actually scare you of yourself and you wish they didn’t exist at all, however solitude can lead you even closer to such venues and make you a living corpse. It is the bridge of the relationship that actually lets you escape from those corners when they actually invite you. There are instances when people would actually want to rather be alone and not be in someones company and that is the point when the person is actually lying to himself. Solitude can never be a solution to problems that are social and personal. They can only be solved by companionship and sharing. I have heard people say lines that words like love and faith have no sense and no meaning, frigid as they might sound, I really empathize with them and would want to convey that the momentary love that they might have actually felt was a very good experience and should be cherished forever, however the expectations from that momentary impulse to actually translate to a long-standing relationship is something which is not sensible and so this leads to a misanthropic situation that the person actually goes into.

Love is probably the only feeling which is variable and has probably no fixed way of assessment. When you are sad you cry, when you are happy you smile or laugh, when you are scared you are afraid but when you are in love I guess there is a gamut of emotions that you display which actually have no sort of relation with each-other. There is no way to determine the course that such a feeling would take because the feeling itself is so inconclusive in the first place. There can be many people who would proclaim that they understand when it is love and they can actually discern true love from feelings like attraction and infatuation, however the first and most important step for love to start is attraction, by any means it may be. You may be intellectually, physically or mentally attracted to a person, but to love the person the attraction is necessary because it is the first step. I don’t proclaim to understand love, because had I understood it , I could have actually fixed lot of problems, however what I can say is that I have figured out somewhat after so many years that for a relationship to survive, love alone cannot be the only factor.

Indian kids go far from the Playgrounds!!!!!!

One of my friends was having a chat with me today and suddenly I recollected a point that was very close to me but I was ignoring it for a long time. My friend and her wife are both working andthey have a small kid of around two years old. It is obvious that living in a busy city like Mumbai and with both the husband and the wife meeting their erratic professional schedules it is very difficult for them to give quality time to their ward. Only quality time that is given by the parents to their children is actually the weekend and with this evident fact it is also obvious that this quality time devotion also coincides with the time that they want to take their necessary rest because of a hectic week’s work and a possible hectic week ahead. The child desires to play with the parents and wants to play in fresh air. However, the parents have some other ideas.

Here comes a very good solution that meets the necessity of both the parents and the child. This solution is that of the fun-zones and kid’s playing areas made up in the shopping malls. There is the very necessary air-conditioned ambience and all the possible options in form of play area to make the kid very happy.The parents leave the kid in the play area for one to two hours by swiping some card and then either sit idle near the play area or just enjoy the company of their kids in the air-conditioned ambience. Seems very good and very convenient and it looks as if one is in the heaven and needed nothing else to entertain the kid. This, however, has a very shady side ahead which I am going to explain you.

Arush (name changed) is a kid of 5 years, and like many kids in Mumbai has both his parents working. A very intelligent kid considering his age Arush is one of the toppers in his class offirst standard and is very good in studies. However, he has a very weak point and that is he is not comfortable to play in the playground. He is not very accustomed to sports like cricket and soccer. He only waits for the weekends when his daddy and mummy are going to take him to the mall and make him play some cranky video-games in the air-conditioned atmosphere.Arush has also developed a sort of dust allergy, that should not develop in this age and this has happened due to his lack of exposure to playground environment. Whenever he goes to the playground he feels uncomfortable to play and yearns for his video games. To re-enforce this vice daddy has even bought a Play Station at home, which Arush relishes everyday under the split AC of the bedroom. Today he feels that even-though he doesn’t have enough friends to play football or cricket these gadgets can actually serve the purpose of his childhood.

The only question I want to ask is how justified is this incident that has happened with Arush. A kid of 5 years is allergic to dust. He doesn’t develop a good friends’ circle that is actually more apparent in this stage of growing. He is not fond of playing in the playgrounds and always wants his video games to be a part of his sporting activities. He is on the verge of becoming an isolated creature because of no fault of his and only the fault of his parents’ busy schedules. Is this how the future of India is going to grow? Is this the way we are going to nurture the hope of this country and proclaim that we will be the super-power of the 21st century? I believe to maintain a good order in the society and to sustain proper growth for this country it is very essential to provide a good quality childhood to our children. There is necessity for us to take these kids to the playground and make them accustomed to sports that are more practical and less virtual by sacrificing a little part of our comfort.

It is not natural for a kid to play video games and actually be addicted to that, when it is actually the age for him/her to be in the vicinity of nature. The kid has all the right to have a decent childhood just like we had. He is also equally entitled to see the animals in the zoo and not in the “Animal Planet”. We have our own justifications that it is much safer in the TV and zoo is mis-managed, but just introspecting may yield an answer that the mismanagement of the zoo is also due to our lack of interest in such places over the few years.

I remember, in this tender age I was not glued to the television and I used to wait for the clock to strike 5 in order to go and play. However, this zeal is not missing from today’s kids and the reason is the laid back attitude of parents like us. We really need to take some good advice from our predecessors in order to give our kids a good childhood. It is a fact that today’s children are becoming victims of premature obesity, lethargy and other metabolic complications due to the incorporation of these bad habits in their itinerary, for which, I believe the parents have to take the responsibility.

Global Warming!!!Common man feels the heat.

Just recently I came back from Gujarat and well what to say it was a great experience. I have a part of Gujarat in me and it always feels great to be over there, taking a break from my schedule, I may not call it busy but definitely hectic and important. Gujarat, greets me like a mother, and takes me in her laps and pacifies me with selfless encouragement. However, during summer, the maternal instincts of Gujarat for me are somehow concealed to some extent due to the extreme rage that she generates by means of heat. Summer heat in Gujarat this time was 49 degree celsius, technically 5 degrees above last year but practically speaking unbearable and unbelievable.

I had read somewhere that the world is warming up. For a country like India, laid-back and ruled by geriatric policies, this warming up metaphorically may have meant a great deal of hope for the younger generation who always need a cause to charge themselves up. However, this was not so. Global warming, was not a matter of joke anymore, and this had really knocked the heads out of the common man like me. If somebody reffers to the meteorological records of Gujarat then he/she will find that every year the maximum temperature of Gujarat since the year 2003 has risen consistently by and average of approximately 1 degree celsius. By this calculation, I mean that in 2003 the maximum temperature that Gujarat recorded was 43 degree celsius and this time after 7 years the mecury has almost scored half a century. Not only that from 2003 Gujarat has been able to break this record every year with a very good perfection. This time I really felt the heat of Gujarat, not only in my body but also in my soul. I could not digest the fact that how a state is consistently beating the records of the mercury-rise in good stride an the people are adjusting to this. I tried to find out some reasons for this.

1. Excessive use of non-renewable resources:

Gujarat is a state that is extremely enterprising and very prosperous. It is a state that technically lies in one of the states that receive very low rainfall. The state is swarmed by busnessmen and their kins, who have more money to spend than time to think. Even for purchasing milk from the shop nearby, the person doesn't hesitate in using his sedan which is actually a fuel guzzler and a great carbon emmitter. Most of the houses have more than one Air Conditioners which are turned on almost for the whole day. The rate of power is much less than it is in other parts of India and so there is very less stress on power consumption, which is actually leading to greater emmission factors.

2. Vicious Circle of Air Conditioners:

Come summer and there will be hoardes of scheme for the purchase of new air conditioners. People are attracted immensely to such schemes and good marketing has transformed the Air Conditioner from an item of luxury to a commodity of necessity. More and more families by AC, they install it and these devices generate more heat to contribute in a great way to the emmission share. This generous contribution increases the global warming factor and thus the temperature increases. Time now to sell a new kind of AC to avoid this confusion. Thus the people get an opportunity and the agenda of prevention of
Global Warming goes for a toss.
For the first time in my life I saw my mother (Gujarat) fuming in a great deal. But who is to blame for these scenarios. Please give your suggestions for the same.;